ABSTRACT
Introduction Disparities and inequalities among groups, regions, and between genders are undesirable, and may have serious consequences for the national integrity and social sustainability. However, the fact is that many such inequalities and disparities cannot be eliminated easily. It may take decades of effort to eliminate or significantly reduce such disparities. Therefore, appropriate management of the factors that reduce income, wealth, capabilities, and opportunities for any group, gender, or region is important for the national integrity and social sustainability. A first step for sustainable management of the factors causing inequality is to measure the relevant inequality. This
Contents Introduction .............................................................................................................................. 93 Literature Review ...................................................................................................................... 94 The Equity Index ....................................................................................................................... 95
Comparative Statics of E ....................................................................................................... 96 Equity Condition for Sustainability ...................................................................................... 97
Applications .............................................................................................................................. 98 Gender Inequality ................................................................................................................. 98 Regional Disparity ................................................................................................................ 98
Conclusion .............................................................................................................................. 100 References ................................................................................................................................101
chapter employs the Human Development Index (HDI) as a yardstick for inequality because it is a weighted average of income, health, and education indices. The section “Literature Review” provides a brief overview of some popular inequality indices. The section “The Equity Index” proposes a new index to measure inequality and provides an equity condition for sustainable human development. The section “Applications” shows how gender inequality and regional disparity can be measured with the proposed index. It also demonstrates how the proposed index differs from the Gender-Related Development Index (GDI) and how that can serve as an early warning system for regional unrest. The section “Conclusion” presents some final observations.
